The Raven and Starfire Tapes
by nedthejanitor
Summary: Remember Kablam's "Prometheus and Bob Tapes"? Well, that, but with Raven and Starfire. Robin has tasked Raven of the newly-minted Teen Titans to teach alien newcomer Starfire how to blend her orange self into human daily life. Then she breaks a lot of stuff.


**Disclaimer: I don't own Ten Titans. That's way too many damn titans for me to manage at the same time, anyway.**

_THE RAVEN AND STARFIRE TAPES_

_#1_

"_BOWLING"_

"Cyborg, are you filming?" Raven's face says, appearing after a brief fit of static.

"Yep!" comes Cyborg's voice from above the camera. "This chest-mounted camera 's going to work, I told you so!"

"Whatever." Raven backs away from the camera, revealing Starfire sitting on a bench at the bowling alley. Starfire waves at Cyborg. "This is Starfire, she's an alien from the planet Tamaran, and we're going to teach her how to be human."

"With bowling," adds Cyborg, to Raven's mild chagrin.

_(cut)_

Starfire stands right in front of the lane, holding the ball up to her chest as if it were a baby. "May I throw the ball now, please?"

"Uh, you mean 'roll,' Starfire," says Raven. "And yes."

Nodding, Starfire throws the ball with all her might into the pins. It easily knocks through the pins, making a loud crash sound when it bursts through the blackness behind them.

"Too hard, Starfire!" Raven says, attempting to keep her cool. It doesn't work and the scoreboard explodes. Cyborg- the camera- turns to see a large man walking toward them. "What the hell did you-?!"

_(cut)_

Raven is standing at a noticeably different bowling alley. "We got kicked out of Jump Bowl, so we're here at Skeevy's Bowling." In the background, two anthropomorphic bowling pins are having a gunfight. "We haven't given up on teaching Starfire how to bowl."

"Thankfully," added Cyborg, "this place looks like it has more lax standards." He walks closer to the lanes, which are full of variously-sized holes, to illustrate his point.

"Friend Raven!" Starfire's voice came from stage right. "I still do not understand your earth shoes, nor their so-called 'laces.'"

Raven's voice: "What size of bowling shoe did you get?"

"I asked them for their largest number, because I assumed they'd be the best of quality."

"No, that's not what you do. Look, you can give them your shoes so they can measure-"

"That's what the shoes man told me, but you said not to give strangers my clothes if they ask for them, so I didn't."

Cyborg turned to the conversation in time to catch Raven's sigh of exasperation, a sound he was already used to. "Starfire, it's okay for just this one case. And a few others I'll explain later. Just give him your shoes."

_(cut)_

Starfire is once again facing down the lane with her trusty maximum-sized ball. "Starfire, maybe if you pick a lighter one…" Raven trails off. It's not like it even mattered, with Starfire's freakish strength. Starfire rolls the ball, just as instructed… into the gutter.

"Success!" Starfire shouts, pumping her fist and causing onlookers to laugh. "I have rolled the ball without breaking something!"

"Besides my fuckin' sides!" says one of the rubberneckers. Raven whispers the problem into Starfire's ear, and the orange woman blushes.

_(cut)_

"This is Starfire's second attempt at bowling," Raven's voice comes from left of the camera, with Starfire still caught in the middle of its gaze. She rolls the ball once again; it nails the standing pins dead center, scattering them almost into the adjacent lanes.

"Damn!" Cyborg's big dumb clapping hands move in and out of the camera's view. "Now you're getting the hang of it!"

Starfire smiles, tilting her head slightly. "All I must do is continue to scatter those white slorbgranks with the ball?"

"Yes… I think," Raven says. "What's a slobgrank?"

"Slorbgrank."

"What is it?"

Starfire explains it- her explanation is too filthy to be recounted here, so enjoy another-

_(cut)_

By this point in the game, 20 minutes later, Starfire has scored about triple either Cyborg or Raven. She has a very specific pattern down, confusing the shit out of her friends.

"This game isn't much fun anymore," grouses Cyborg.

"It's pretty hard to call it a game when you don't have any hope of winning," Raven says agreeingly.

"Hey," Cyborg says after Starfire makes another strike. "Why don't we use our powers?"

"That would be cheating, Cy."

"So it's fine for Starfire to cheat with her super strength?"

Starfire manages to close out a game with three strikes in a row as Raven looks on. She turns her face back to the camera. "…Let's use our powers."

_(cut)_

It's at the end of the next game and the score is completely tied. Cyborg set his strength outputs to 100 percent and Raven used some subtle telekinesis. But with it at the end of the game, the two teenage heroes are having an attack of conscience.

"Star," says Cyborg. "We gotta confess- we've been using our powers during the game."

"Are you not allowed to do that?" Starfire asks.

"Well… there's no official rule against it," Cyborg says hesitantly. "But that's probably because most people have no powers."

"Fascinating…" Starfire says.

"How about this," Cyborg says. "Raven and I will agree not to use our powers if you agree to not use yours."

"I don't know how not to…"

Raven butts in. "Then just use half your strength to roll the ball."

The orange alien's face lights up. She resembles a gender-bent John Boehner during November 2010. "Yes! I can do that!"

_(cut)_

Raven and Starfire are now sitting on a stone bench at a park far from the bowling alley. "I don't understand," Starfire whines. "How come we had to leave?"

"Starfire," says Raven, "you completely destroyed the aisle we were using. That's why."

"I did what you asked, Friend Raven!"

Cyborg asks, "You used half your power? How much were you using before that?"

"About 20 percent. I couldn't throw straight if I used more than that."

"God damn it, Starfire," Raven grouses. "Well, Cyborg? Have you found anymore bowling alleys in the vicinity?"

"Wait, what?"

"Have you even been looking?"

"No!" Cyborg says. "I thought we were done after what just happened!"

"I want this done right, without any screw ups."

"I am bored of this, what you call, 'bowling,'" admits Starfire. "Besides, I was under the impression that bowls were for keeping your food in."

"No, Starfire," Raven says. "Those are two different words."

"But they are the same sound…?"

Raven and Starfire sit together in silence for about three minutes. A car drives by in the background. "Oh! One of your earth vehicles! I must go inspect it for people!"

"Wait, Star- shit!" Cyborg tries to get her to stay put, but she flies off after the vehicle.

**END**


End file.
